Helloo, you good?
Realising that a few of these newsletters make me sound like a negative nelly. What can I say? Ya boi tries to keep it 100. In that spirit, going to plow ahead with the opening that I wrote while in London earlier this week. Don’t worry, it cheers up after a couple of paragraphs. And second half of newsletter is approaching jubilance.
Surefire way to start hating London: do battle with public transport → move heavy luggage through the street → walk down Oxford street → attempt to charge phone in horrible business district.
I was here to attend my visa appointment, but arranged to stay for a few days to visit friends. I was looking forward to coming back, but after struggling with my bags, eating a disappointing cake in Costa, and spending half an hour drifting from street to street, I wished I was back in Greece.
Among the trampling pace of London streets, this wee wanderer was overtaken and undercut. I got pissed off with all the busybodies, and tried to find a scathing way to sum the city up: ‘100 stereotypes repeated a million times.’ ‘An American cultural import with nothing left to save.’ ‘Too busy giving itself fellacio to notice the rest of the world.’
Then I caught myself becoming one of those classic ‘I hate London’ people I’ve spent the last 6 years rolling your eyes at. Stop it. I knew that I would be having a lovely time as soon as I got this damn visa appointment out of the way.
And sure enough, appointment done, things improved. Dinner with Tom and Alice on Tom’s boat. Delightful. Hanging out with Conrad and Em, who were kind enough to put me up for a couple of nights. So lovely. Then the next day: full english; tasty coffee; Hampstead Heath swim; pint in pub; pimms in finsbury park; old friends. Had lots of fun. Summer in London is actually v nice.
But London is a place to live, not to visit. Reminded me of a bit in a book I read about a guy rocking up in metropolitan San Jose:
‘It was odd in any case to be a traveller in a place where people were busily occupied: going to the dentist, buying curtains, searching for motor spares, taking their children to school, leading their lives in dedicated and innocent ways … I saw a young couple picking out a vacuum cleaner, and i felt guilty and homesick’
(From Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express. V good read.)
Handy, then, that I was heading up to my hometown; the fam were going camping in north wales this weekend and I was joining.
My family have been going on holiday to Bala lake since my Mum was a child. So for us, tis a lake filled not with plain old H2O, but with gay memories of youth and childhood. On Bala lake, i learnt to sail. In a little tributary to the lake, I made my first dam. And in the little shop in the campsite, I noticed for the first time a Freddo price increase (17p to 20p, fyi).
Since I was a child, we’ve gone along most years with three or four other families. Between us, we end up with quite a fleet of boats, windsurfers and kayaks, which makes for a fun weekend messing around on the water.
Its a very wholesome affair: lazy breakfast outside the tents; people hopping on and off boats and boards; pesto pasta lunches; lots of tea. Usually, in the evenings we have a BBQ followed by a fire by the lake to warm our cockles and scare off the midges. Best thing about camping is you sleep like the dead. Can’t beat cozying up in a sleeping bag to the sound of nearby feet crunching groundsheets and tent zips closing for the night.
This evening I caught a lift back to Nantwich with Eliot. Tomorrow I’m setting off early to go to Bristol, for a few days cycling. Will be fun.
As ever, keen to hear how your week has been.
Until next Sunday, byeeee
